January 8, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Obama administration should require foundations to spend at least 10 percent of their assets on grant making and other charitable activities annually to help America solve its economic crisis, writes Martin Kearns, an online advocacy expert.
Currently the Internal Revenue Service makes foundations give on average 5 percent a year, but that is not enough, writes Mr. Kearns, the co-founder and executive director of the Green Media Toolshed, a nonprofit group that helps environmental organizations improve their communications skills.
“As part of the stimulus plan, the administration should shift the IRS rule that minimum payout must exceed 10 percent for the next 3 to 5 years. The money in foundations is money that our society has set aside without taxation to improve our common good,” he writes on his blog, Network-Centric Advocacy.
“Our society and the nonprofit sector need the influx of that cash now.”
What do you think of Mr. Kearns’s proposal? Would foundations be able to sustain increased giving with the current stock-market volatility? Click the comment button below to share your views.
